


Lady Sing Your Song So Blue

by bluemermaid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Secretly it's a pre-slash f/f fic but read it as you will, Seedy Nightclubs, Singing, Smoking isn't really cool but I use it in fics anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3403130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemermaid/pseuds/bluemermaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pansy finds a card stuck in the crack of her door one autumn evening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady Sing Your Song So Blue

Pansy finds the card stuck in the crack of her door one autumn evening.

She is tired and hungry and her back aches, and she has no time or effort to spare in wondering about curiosities, and so the sight of the card angers her, and she yanks the door open without touching it, letting the little white rectangle flutter down to the ground at her feet. Pansy stomps over the threshold and almost lets the door close behind her, but a cold wind ruffles her hair and something stops her. She looks down at the card on the step.

"Oh, hell," she says, and bends over to pick it up.

Pansy is tired because she works all day, mending robes at the back of Madam Malkin's and hating herself and everyone around her. Hating the world can take a lot out of a girl. Pansy hates the world because the world hates her; the world must hate her, because she works all day mending robes at the back of Madam Malkin's.

Pansy wasn't supposed to work all day mending robes at the back of Madam Malkin's. Pansy was supposed to marry a rich Pureblood man and live in a rich Pureblood mansion and have rich Pureblood children. Instead, Pansy's family was on the losing side of war, and Pansy lost everything. She lives now in a dingy little flat all by herself, and hates the world.

She doesn't know who stuck the card in her door, but it is obviously somebody who hates her, because why should Pansy want to go to a seedy club in the wrong part of town? She has never heard of the Blue Mist Corner, and clearly that means it's not the appropriate sort of place for a girl like Pansy.

But Pansy doesn't really know what sort of a girl she is, actually.

And she does so hate sitting alone in her flat every evening.

So perhaps the person who stuck the card in her door doesn't entirely hate her, after all.

Pansy decides to find out.

Pansy gets off work and makes her way carefully across town, trying not to look at people as she trudges through the dirty streets. If she doesn't look at them she can pretend they aren't there, that Muggles don't exist and Pansy is a queen in a world of magic all her own. Pansy used to dream of being Queen, when she was a little girl. But the wizarding world doesn't have queens. She still tried to make herself one, anyway.

It sits on a corner, just as the name says, and the sun is just setting as Pansy stumbles across it, the gleaming blue sign over the door leaping out at her just when she'd decided to go home after all. Pansy is tired and her back aches, but she is miserable and where else do miserable people go but into seedy clubs? Pansy will only stay a moment, just to see what makes this place so special, what makes it worth sticking a card into a girl's door.

The Blue Mist Corner lives up to its name in more just than its location; magic has conjured a blue mist that curls around Pansy's ankles as she steps inside. The lights are so low she can barely see, and Pansy trails her fingers along the rough walls as she walks carefully towards a secluded booth in the back of the room.

There are several such booths, and Pansy can see dark shadows in them, people hunched over drinks or whispering to companions. Pansy feels something tugging on her heart, some painful urge in her chest that she can't put words to. Pansy misses being powerful and having everybody look up at her when she entered a room. Instead she is a lonely loser and nobody even knows she has entered the club. But that's all right, because Pansy shouldn't even be here. She reaches into her pocket and fingers the crumpled up card there, as though to reassure herself. There is a reason for this, for being here, for being alive at all, even if she cannot name it yet.

"What's so special about this place, anyway?" she demands, when the slim young man arrives to take her drink order. Pansy puts on her old Slytherin Queen voice and tries to pretend it still fits her, when really it is tight and stifling and torn apart. "Why am I even here?"

The man smiles like he knows everything about her. Pansy hates him for it. "Wait until the Lady sings," he tells her, with a wink and a little gesture towards the front of the room.

Pansy looks up, where a three-man jazz band is playing some boring little tune. It doesn't mean anything to her. But she orders a drink and sits sullenly, her body hunched up and her mind wandering around the dark misty corners. She should go home and go to sleep; she has to work in the morning. But Pansy never wants the morning to come, as it's just another reminder of all that she's lost and the nothingness she has become.

Then the lights go even darker, if such a thing were possible, and Pansy looks up, where a gleaming blue light centers on the stage. And the Lady appears.

She is wearing a shimmering gown and has long messy blonde hair. Her eyes are wide and her hips sway awkwardly as she moves. "Good evening," she says, and her voice is small and dreamy, floating around the room. "I'd like to sing for you."

Pansy feels that odd tingling of remembering something you've forgotten a long time ago. She knows the Lady, though she cannot say how. The Lady is awkward and strange, and Pansy cannot believe that she is about to sing. She should leave; Pansy will leave and she will spare herself the embarrassment of having to listen to this little girl stumble through a song.

But then the Lady takes a deep breath and lets her voice loose, and Pansy is rooted to her seat with a pounding ache in her heart. The Lady sings, and she sings the blues, and her voice is deep and sad and filled with so much emotion that it's simply overwhelming. Pansy has never heard anything like it. Pansy has never felt anything like it.

Pansy finds herself drifting closer, wanting more, needing this sudden connection that's making little wet tears spill from her eyes, as the Lady sings of loss and Pansy feels every bit of truth in the sound. It is as though the Lady had looked into Pansy's own dark little heart and sang the wordless song that lingered there. 

"They don't laugh at jokes here," Luna says to her later, when Pansy asks her how a world could be so blue. "They laugh at tragedies."

Pansy used to think that Luna Lovegood was a simple fool, nothing but a blank slate for Pansy to pour all of her own frustrations and anger out over. But the Lady has her own wisdom, and she always did. Pansy sees that now, and hates herself for it. But the Lady tells her not to hate, for hatred is useless regret. "No regrets," she says, and sings the words so softly that Pansy thinks she must be lying.

Pansy waits for the Lady after the show and finds herself face to face with an enemy. "You," she says with a gasp, and the Lady just lights a cigarette with a smile.

"Hello, Pansy," says Luna, puffing away, as though she has always been waiting here just for Pansy to come along.

"You're," says Pansy, and stops herself with a little choking noise in the back of her throat. _You're beautiful._

Luna hears her all the same. "I'm sorry," she says. "Did you want a puff?"

"How did you end up here?" Pansy asks. "Your side won. You should be in a mansion somewhere. This place is for the losers."

"You're not a loser, Pansy," Luna replies.

"You don't know anything about me," Pansy says sharply.

"I know a lot about a lot of things," says the Lady. "I know they punished you merely for being a child. I know that darkness never really leaves the world."

Pansy is tired and hungry and her back aches, and she is alone in the world. But the Lady sings, sings her song so blue, and Pansy feels things, and cries despite herself. Luna lights a cigarette, puffs away, and they stand together in the darkness outside the Blue Mist Corner. 

Pansy comes to listen every night, and doesn't feel so alone any longer.


End file.
